Kaka

Sam Mendes poetic, fragile and intimate. Empire of Light is a slow-moving film that explores the travails of personal life through Roger Deakins' haunting imagery and the minimalist setting of a single coastal street with an opulent cinema. Depression, loneliness, illness, racial issues, several strong themes are outlined in this slow-moving story of a handful of people sharing their troubles in a small British town. But the whole thing strikes me as perhaps too artsy, too static and lacking in energy. Olivia Colman gives a brilliant performance, but you can't find your way to most of the characters.

This determined effort by the French to make a gripping biopic fails in its handling of the story, which is unnecessarily elaborately edited and overwhelms the viewer with constant flashbacks that incoherently spill back and forth for basically the entire runtime. At times, the narrative style reminded me of Once Upon a Time in America – only much less well executed and often saying nothing. Dramatically is hardly average, but the acting is amazing, with Marion Cotillard putting on a fabulous one-woman-show. Also worth mentioning is the fantastic make-up of the protagonist. All in all, though, Edith Piaf is quite a harrowing 140 minutes. Out of duty to the legend, or as a showcase of masterful acting without anything. As an entertaining and inspiring film, rather not.

An intergalactic take on Indiana Jones. All adventure, blaster instead of lasso and using beskar armour as a bulletproof vest!

The third season abandons the classic episodic nature of the first two and builds a more comprehensive story that weaves through all the episodes of the most recent seasons so far. At first, the cards are laid out a little clumsily and slowly, and you don’t really know what to expect in the next episodes, but from about the halfway point on, the third season of The Mandalorian picks up a good pace and heads confidently towards a bombastic finale. There is no shortage of SW gadgets and quite a few amusing moments, especially around Grogu. As an epic Star Wars alternation it's only intermittent, but it is a feel good series almost constantly.

Heaps of creative ideas and social commentary that after half an hour feels like out of a machine-gun, and the rest of the running time is just recycled. Moreover, Barbie is too shrill and dramatically inconsistent. After an hour, I wished it would end. The acting is unsurprisingly good, at times funnily accurate in reflecting the problems of contemporary society, but I don't quite get the commercial success and worldwide hype around Barbie.

The John Wick universe, where cool gunslingers shoot headshots and perform gun-fu, just like John Wick, in a dark visual stylization like John Wick. The production design is properly neo-noir and the soundtrack is full of bangers. The only problem is that John Wick himself isn't even there for a minute, and the characters that are "in his place" are either completely generic with no appeal or have too little space. The only reliably workable link is Mel Gibson as the alpha bad guy. There is no need for another spin-off like this and an attempt to create a Wick world.

I was expecting another new world adventure and instead got a wildly edited, plodding three-hour procedural with elements of an inside job at the end. All to the sound of monstrously thumping music and artsy black and white flashbacks. I'm not disputing the dense premise, or the decent performances, but the film only has two sparks in 180 minutes. One when the bomb goes off and the other when the camera is trained on Florence Pugh – with or without clothes on, it doesn't matter, both work.

A mix of Oblivion, Blade Runner, Elysium and Independence Day, with a meditative Asian setting and a completely uninteresting script and characters. It's a huge shame. The Creator demands big emotions from the viewer, but is unable to offer adequate material to make them happen. That said, the technical aspects are top-notch and the plot premise itself – the clash between A.I. and humans – is very timely and interesting. Untapped potential and Clair de Lune certainly doesn't save it.

A reflective Fincher. Technically still on top of his game, directorially still as methodical and minimalist with attention to every detail. That the screenwriter chose a simpler plot without unnecessary twists or shocking points doesn't matter much. It doesn't have to be in every one of his films. In fact, Fassbender's assassin is such an interesting and well-portrayed character that it is he who is the center of the film, and around him revolves a kind of plot with changing locations and meeting interesting people. Worth mentioning is the fantastic action in Florida, which I wouldn't have expected from Fincher. A meditative, simmering crime drama where everything works very well, just not brilliantly.

A love letter to the American western. Taylor Sheridan does with cowboys and untamed nature something similar to what Christopher Nolan did with Batman: he gives it a third dimension – the human dimension – making him flesh and blood, vulnerable, mortal. Sheridan works in a similar way with the heroes here. It's not just about gunslingers in cool clothes and classic shootouts in saloons, or in the streets in front of them, as we know from most gunslinger flicks, save a few honourable exceptions. 1883 goes much deeper, and is much more visceral, and sensitive, than it first appears. Fans of Yellowstone will love this one, but all the attributes and directorial touches suggest that this miniseries will appeal to everyone in general. A uniquely blended collage of fragility, poetics (voice-overs), and uncompromising wilderness survival with a yet-to-be-formed society.